


Paper Faces, Steel Hearts

by clutzycricket



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Asexual Character, Attempted Sexual Assault, F/M, James and Rhaenys are laughing at Sirius, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 17:22:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5710771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clutzycricket/pseuds/clutzycricket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was no fairy tale, no great sparkling moments, but there was a boy too bright and a girl with a dragon's heart, and the beginnings of a dance.</p><p>(Or, how the word "frigid" became something no wizard with self-preservation said, as taught by Rhaenys Targaryen, Sirius Black, and Lily Evans. Also, James and Rhaenys might be the only ones who realize how oblivious Sirius is sometimes.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paper Faces, Steel Hearts

Girls seemed to discover Sirius Black somewhere towards the middle of fourth year, when his growth spurts came in and he still stuck his head firmly in pranks and squabbles.

 

Rhaenys Targaryen and Brienne Tarth watched the girls who giggled and preened, trying to get his attention. Brienne had a horrible crush on Renly Baratheon, two years their senior, and while Rhaenys had privately screamed into her pillow at the otherwise sensible girl’s bit of blindness. 

 

(Of course, Renly had declared her his favorite cousin, so she was a bit more aware that he was… entirely uninterested in girls as a species. But she couldn’t tell Brienne that without breaking a confidence, so she just hoped it didn’t end in tears.)

 

“Really,” Brienne  muttered, the Puff looking at Cate Bracken, who Sirius had just covered in squid bits by accident  _ last week _ . “This is ridiculous. How does he have time to get anything done, all the girls he dates?” 

 

Rhaenys opened her mouth, but closed it. Didn’t anyone else notice…?

 

_ Huh _ . Well, his friends in the boys’ dorm might notice- he and James Potter occasionally lived in each other’s pockets. And she had known Sirius before Hogwarts- the Targaryens were a terrifying family, and the Martells old if eccentric. They had become the strange children who were out of their comfort zones in adult society parties together. As to why he wasn’t squashing the rumors...well, there were reasons for that, and she wasn’t going to open Sirius to any of that censure. 

 

She looked over her shoulder, feeling that worrying sense of doom, and saw Avery and Mulciber striding towards them. She adjusted her Gryffindor scarf, and reflected that she might have inherited Mum’s discretion, but she  _ definitely _ got Grandmother and Uncle Oberyn’s temper.

 

~

 

Fifth year was a mess of OWLs, and boys noticing Rhaenys, who at least normally had classes with Lily Evans, who was as terrifying with a wand as she was, or Brienne or Garlan, who were both very ... _ imposing _ . For a rigidly honorably Gryffindor and absurdly cheerful Hufflepuff, that is.

 

But that didn’t stop rumors, and she learned to fight back on her own, with sarcastic, bright-smiled musings on their *abilities*. A few embarrassed souls, a duel or three, and a rather spectacular set of bruised ribs later, she was labelled as “frigid” and took it with equanimity. 

 

Of course, of course, someone wasn’t going to take it that easy. That someone happened to be one of Avery and Mulciber’s crowd, who had waited for her to be alone and started with a Stunner, because… well, her mind was both snarky and skittering from that.

 

She leaped up, missing it by a hair, and reflexive practice meant she went back at him with a wide-bore staining spell that stung like acid she’d dug up from the family library. (She practiced duelling with her Uncles and Obara, yes, but she’d learned to read from too-tricky books perched next to her Papa, who had very different, very Targaryen ideas about what was appropriate for little girls to learn.)

 

She rolled her ankle, but didn’t drop her wand, Obara’s endless drills paying off. (Lily was right, that crowd was all Death Eaters just waiting to get out from Dumbledore’s control before sucking off the Dark…)

 

There was another spell, hitting her in the side, the smell of blood sharp in her mouth and nose and making her see starbursts. 

 

She launched a particularly wicked thing from Serenei’s Workbooks, merging his kneecaps, as a third voice launched a rope spell.

 

“Cheshire, you alright?” Sirius came up, James Potter at his heels. Sirius’s eyes were wide and wild, and James had his wand trained on the Ravenclaw boy. 

 

“I’m bleeding like a stuck pig,” she said, faintly. “A little help might be nice.” 

 

He bandaged it. “What happened? Is this what happened with McDonald?”

 

She looked at the other boy, who was muttering something, and remembered where she had seen him, and what she had seen him saying last. “I think it might be related to my stubborn refusal to sleep with whoever thinks themselves deserving of putting their cock between my legs. Which, let’s be fair, I might not want a cock. So they ask, I say no, they try to curse me, I prove I am scarier.”

 

“I like bleeding out Targaryen,” Potter said. “She’s all direct and filthy, in an adorable freckly murder package.”

 

“I study the Dragonstone library during my summer holidays,” she told him, solemnly. Sirius started laughing against her. “And I do a mean dirty couplet.”

 

The nurse studied them and fetched McGonagall, who only went slightly spare.

 

She noticed that the Marauders kept an eye out for girls being hassled after that, though. 

 

(“We’re too afraid of what you might do to us if we don’t,” Peter Pettigrew said, nodding his head. “Not to mention Evans.”

 

Lily had merely nodded her head at that, a disturbingly feral grin on her face.)

 

~

 

Sirius nearly ruined her blood-earned reputation when he came into the Gryffindor Common Room, looking like he had met the Stranger, stumbling straight onto her couch and laying his head in her lap.

 

“I am attempting to do my homework,” she said lightly, running her free hand through his hair. He seemed like he needed the simple comfort, and Sirius, she suspected, had always been deprived of kind touch.

 

“Stranger take your homework, I fucked up,” he said. She put up a Silencing Charm.

 

“Is it something you can tell me?” she asked. 

 

“Telling someone is what got me into this mess,” he said, sounding lost. “I think he knew- I think he just wanted me to say it, and I did, I gave it up. Is that worse, you think? Or… I gave away something that he might have figured out eventually, on top of that, and no one is going to forgive me.”

 

Rhaenys thought it out. She’d figured out about Remus a while ago- Lily had ranted to her about Snape and his obsession with proving that Sirius and his friends were just as bad as Avery and Mulciber, and Snape had told Lily his theory about Remus vanishing every full moon. “So you told Snape how to get into the Whomping Willow?”

 

He looked up at her, shocked.

 

“My mother’s cousin,” she said, smiling faintly. “Uncle Doran keeps her as his accountant. She’s brilliant at it, though she never could attend a wizarding school.”

 

“Oh,” he said, looking surprised. “Does Remus know you know?”

 

“I never saw a reason to confront him about a private medical issue,” she said, carefully putting down her quill. Her essay is a bit more of a rant, anyway. “Though I admit to some worry when you asked for some of the potion ingredients for the animagus potion. Uncle Oberyn was about to go to Mum.”

 

Sirius winced. “You terrify me, Cheshire.”

 

“I trust your heart, if not your execution,” she said, stroking his hair again. “Now, you are going to have to grovel to Remus. Enough grovelling to make Tywin Lannister ill.”

 

He nodded. “I just need to get him to accept it.”

 

“Or wait for him to be ready for it,” she corrected.

 

~

 

Sixth year lead to Sirius, who was still obliviously trailed by twitterpated witches and the odd wizard, asking if he could talk to her. Thinking he needed her help for a prank- it had happened before, as she could get them into most of the Common Rooms and had the ability to get a large amount of dubious spells and potion supplies- she agreed, following him to an empty classroom, wondering how bad the prank could be if he was that nervous.

 

“Did you know I apparently am some sort of Casanova?” Sirius asked, voice strangled. 

 

She blinked. “...Okay, Mum’s family stays firmly in the Muggle world, so I know how  _ I _ know that term.  How do you know that term?”

 

“Lily explained it to me. There was a girl with a love potion,” he said, sounding deeply aggrieved. 

 

“Which girl?” she said. If it was Dany or one of her cousins- she doubted it, but still- she’d box their ears soundly then turn over to Mum.

 

“Not important,” he said. “We’re handling it. But apparently I’ve been chased by girls for a couple of years?”

 

“...Yes?” she said, trying to look innocent. Being fair, she knew it would fail- Sirius had first met her when they were about six, at some party in Casterly Rock, and she’d shoved him over some silly fight. Then a Tyrell cousin had said something, and they both turned on the other wizard.

 

They hadn’t been friends, really- they’d only seen each other at social occasions where children were allowed- but they had stuck together as the only sane people there.

 

“Did everyone know about this?” he said, looking so despairing she almost felt guilty.

 

“Being fair, I’m pretty sure no one thought you couldn’t know, except maybe James and I,” she said. “And you didn’t say anything, so I wasn’t sure if you wanted it to stand for some reason.”

 

“What, like Renly Baratheon?” Sirius said, rendering careful hiding on her cousin’s part useless. Ah, well. “No, I just… I don’t actually…” He frowned. “There just seemed to be other things to do. If I want to talk to a girl and do the whole relaxing thing, I can just bother you. And seeing how stupid some people get when they just want to snog or…” He stopped. “I think I insulted you, and I didn’t want to. But I have James, Remus, and Peter for friends. I have you for a friend who is a girl, and I can do things I can’t do with them with you. Like the lap thing, with the hair.”

 

“Is there a purpose to this?” she asked, really happy Arianne couldn’t misinterpret that last bit.

 

“Well, I asked for advice, and I was told that maybe I should have a girlfriend. Or a friend, who is a girl, who would make sure that this doesn’t happen,” he said. “Apparently my running away makes me an attractive bad boy rebel.” He gave her a cheesy grin. 

 

“You are so ridiculous,” she hid her face in her hands. “You could kill boggarts right now, just with your presence.”

 

“You were my only choice,” he kept going. “So help?”

 

She laughed. “Only because you are  _ that _ pathetic.”

 

~

 

“Five galleons that they end up married before a decade is up,” Peter said, after the gossip started.

  
The bet was never collected on.


End file.
